]]>I heard Fran Lebowitz speak at Massey Hall last week about how much she hates strollers, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and audiences with low standards. She blames the latter on the Oprah effect—the impulse of the modern American audience to rise in applause of anything and everything. Nowhere in history (besides, perhaps, on the Oprah Winfrey show) was this phenomenon more pervasive than last night during Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address. Except for Ted Nugent or John Boehner, the live audience was perpetually on its feet. Even Paul Ryan couldn’t resist applauding this one liner — that or he really enjoys veiled digs at his own policy proposals:

“I am open to additional reforms from both parties, so long as they don’t violate the guarantee of a secure retirement. Our government shouldn’t make promises we cannot keep – but we must keep the promises we’ve already made.”

Three more observations about the State of the Union:

1. Boehner’s awkward stoicism (and pink polka-dot tie) will go down in history for longest bout of forced politeness: the political sequel, you might say, to Chris Brown’s snub of Frank Ocean on Grammy night. Something the Speaker of the House actually did stand up for?

“Tonight, we stand united in saluting the troops and civilians who sacrifice every day to protect us. Because of them, we can say with confidence that America will complete its mission in Afghanistan, and achieve our objective of defeating the core of al Qaeda.”

2. The most surprising moment of the night came not when Obama said the word “gay,” which he’s been doing a lot lately, or even—God forbid—”science”—but when he revealed his plans to rip off the Maclean’s University Guide:

“Tonight, I ask Congress to change the Higher Education Act, so that affordability and value are included in determining which colleges receive certain types of federal aid. And tomorrow, my Administration will release a new “College Scorecard” that parents and students can use to compare schools based on a simple criteria: where you can get the most bang for your educational buck.”

3. There were a lot of predictions leading to the SOTU address. To call them that is kind of a stretch. We all knew in advance what was going to happen: $9 minimum wage, jobs jobs jobs, climate change (though I doubt anyone predicted Obama’s promotion of John McCain to chief environmentalist). The best remarks Obama made were on the subject of gun control, because his partisan message—to ban “massive ammunition magazines” and promote stricter background checks—wasn’t his only message. The notion that those personally wounded by gun violence deserve the chance (or in his words “a vote”) to effect change was, I imagine, moving for both political camps. It helped, too, that the wounded were sitting in the audience.

“It has been two months since Newtown. I know this is not the first time this country has debated how to reduce gun violence. But this time is different. Overwhelming majorities of Americans – Americans who believe in the 2nd Amendment – have come together around commonsense reform – like background checks that will make it harder for criminals to get their hands on a gun. Senators of both parties are working together on tough new laws to prevent anyone from buying guns for resale to criminals. Police chiefs are asking our help to get weapons of war and massive ammunition magazines off our streets, because they are tired of being outgunned.

Each of these proposals deserves a vote in Congress. If you want to vote no, that’s your choice. But these proposals deserve a vote. Because in the two months since Newtown, more than a thousand birthdays, graduations, and anniversaries have been stolen from our lives by a bullet from a gun.

One of those we lost was a young girl named Hadiya Pendleton. She was 15 years old. She loved Fig Newtons and lip gloss. She was a majorette. She was so good to her friends, they all thought they were her best friend. Just three weeks ago, she was here, in Washington, with her classmates, performing for her country at my inauguration. And a week later, she was shot and killed in a Chicago park after school, just a mile away from my house.

Hadiya’s parents, Nate and Cleo, are in this chamber tonight, along with more than two dozen Americans whose lives have been torn apart by gun violence. They deserve a vote.

Gabby Giffords deserves a vote.

The families of Newtown deserve a vote.

The families of Aurora deserve a vote.

The families of Oak Creek, and Tucson, and Blacksburg, and the countless other communities ripped open by gun violence – they deserve a simple vote.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/authors/emma-teitel/boehner-likes-obama-less-than-chris-brown-likes-frank-ocean/feed/0Newtown shooting: Gun control at last?http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/newtown-shooting-gun-control-at-last/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/newtown-shooting-gun-control-at-last/#commentsFri, 14 Dec 2012 23:13:26 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=328656Or is today, asks Emma Teitel, pretty much the only time American politicians will be willing to touch the topic?

Twenty-seven people shot to death–20 of them children–at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut today, which means that Americans can count on one thing in the aftermath of this tragedy and it probably isn’t stricter gun laws, or in the very least, greater access to mental health care. It’s statements like these…

“Well it does make me wonder, you know with all those people in the theatre, was there nobody that was carrying that could’ve stopped this guy more quickly?”

Apparently “more quickly” is the best America can hope for, nevermind altogether–which is what zero guns would accomplish. Pro-gun control blogger Baldr Odinson does an excellent job disputing the NRA’s popular vigilante argument (a survivor of a shooting himself, he knows a little more about this than, say, Ted Nugent does.)

So far, Republicans (even Nugent) have refrained from “politicizing” the Newtown tragedy, but history–very recent history–tells us that it’s only a matter of time before they do, before the if-the-victims-had-guns-they-wouldn’t-be-victims argument rears its ugly, stupid head. And that’s a good thing, because then, perhaps, president Obama will be forced to respond with more than just platitudes.

This is a good start:

“We’re gonna have to come together to take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this regardless of the politics.”

We’ll see what happens next week and the week after that– whether “meaningful action” comes to mean anything at all. New York City mayor, Michael Bloomberg, is skeptical.

“President Obama rightly sent his heartfelt condolences to the families in Newtown. But the country needs him to send a bill to Congress to fix this problem. Calling for ‘meaningful action’ is not enough. We need immediate action. We have heard all the rhetoric before. What we have not seen is leadership – not from the White House and not from Congress. That must end today.”

Yet it won’t, because as Ezra Klein notes below, “today”–as in the day of– is pretty much the only time American politicians are willing to touch the topic. And even then, they don’t really touch it so much as actively avoid it.

“Only with gun violence do we respond to repeated tragedies by saying that mourning is acceptable but discussing how to prevent more tragedies is not. But that’s unacceptable. As others have observed, talking about how to stop mass shootings in the aftermath of a string of mass shootings isn’t ‘too soon.’ It’s much too late.”

After years of tawdry headlines, tarnished Democratic Party golden boy John Edwards is going to court. The former senator and presidential candidate is accused of diverting $900,000 in contributions to his 2008 presidential campaign to cover up an affair with videographer Rielle Hunter, as well as the birth of their child. Edwards, whose wife, Elizabeth, died of cancer in 2010, contends that the funds weren’t campaign contributions; rather, the lawyers for the North Carolina politician say, the money was a gift from friends to help him out in his time of need. If convicted, he faces up to 30 years in prison and $1.5 million in fines.

The final frontier

After having a go at astrophysics, academia and the world of high tech, Cheick Modibo Diarra has moved on to something far more complicated: governing an African nation. Between 1989 and 2002, the Mali-born Diarra oversaw unmanned NASA missions to Mars, Venus, Jupiter and the sun. He then became president of one African university and co-founded another, before becoming head of Microsoft Africa in 2006. After launching a political party last year, Diarra was recently appointed interim prime minister of Mali following a coup d’état. His first challenge: quelling rebel uprisings in the country’s north. Getting a spacecraft to Mars may be simpler by comparison.

Endless overtime

It’s a feat that rivals even this year’s overtime-addled NHL playoffs. For five hours, the Stratford Aces and the Chatham Outlaws battled it out in Ontario’s Atom A tournament. The teams, made up of nine- and 10-year-old girls, played 12 overtime periods before the coaches decided to settle things with a shootout. The winning goal, a flick over the goalie by Stratford’s Emily McFadden, was greeted by the exhausted cheers of parents from both sides.

The sheriff ‘likes’ this

Proving once again that the Internet makes you stupid—or at least lets you broadcast your stupidity to the world—Michael Baker was arrested after he posted a picture of himself on Facebook siphoning gas from a cruiser belonging to the Jenkins, Ky., police force. Hardly contrite, Baker was irked that police made him remove the picture, which shows him brandishing a jerry can and an extended middle finger. “It was funny as hell tho,” Baker wrote on his Facebook page after getting out of jail.

Baring it all

Sarah Silverman has found yet another thing to make shocking comments about: her own body. The comic, known for her potty-mouthed rants on subjects like abortion and gay marriage, was talking at the Tribeca Film Festival about doffing her clothes for Canadian director and indie darling Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz. Silverman was typically harsh about being naked in front of the camera. “The morning leading up to it, I overgroomed,” Silverman told journalists of the experience. “It was bad.”

Danny’s boy

Following in the combative (and Progressive Conservative) footsteps of former Newfoundland premier Danny Williams, St. John’s Mayor Dennis O’Keefe has taken to publicly slagging Stephen Harper. O’Keefe, a lifelong Tory, was responding to the recent Conservative budget, which he said drastically reduced the federal government’s presence in Newfoundland and Labrador. As mayor of St. John’s since 2008, O’Keefe says he’s seen federal jobs disappear and decision making exported to Ottawa. Williams, who launched the “Anything But Conservative” campaign in 2008, was no doubt proud as punch.

Risky business

News that Lindsay Lohan is set to make her return to the silver screen is being greeted with harsh words—and considerable concern for the troubled star. “She’s not in a place to work,” talk show host Rosie O’Donnell told the Today show this week. “She needs a lot of time away. I feel very sorry for her.” Lohan, who made news this week for allegedly starting a bar fight in West Hollywood (her second in two weeks, if TMZ can be believed), is set to play Elizabeth Taylor in the upcoming biopic Liz & Dick, about the icon’s rocky relationship with actor Richard Burton. Extra precautions appear to be in place: “Lindsay Lohan may be the most insured actress that ever walked on a soundstage,” said producer Larry Thompson, admitting he is also moving filming from Canada to Lohan’s L.A. hometown, to “minimize some of the risk.”

No threats are idle

Ted Nugent’s maw got him into trouble yet again when the musician and staunch gun rights advocate waxed wise about the spectre of a second term for the U.S. President. “If Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will either be dead or in jail this time next year,” he told an audience of National Rifle Association members in St. Louis. His cryptic bons mots earned him a visit from the Secret Service. The Fort Knox army base has since cancelled his appearance at a June 23 concert.

Talks, at last

After nearly three months, many smashed windows and ever more heated rhetoric, it seems Quebec’s striking students will meet with Quebec Education Minister Line Beauchamp. Student groups have taken to the street in protest of the government’s proposed tuition increases, resulting in property damage, bridge closures and hundreds of arrests. Beauchamp has seen it first-hand: her offices have been vadalized and protesters have visited her home. The minister said she would only meet with those student groups that denounced these violent outbursts—which CLASSE, the largest and most radical, only did recently.

Brush fires

In life, artist Thomas Kinkade both delighted and offended with his vivid (and some would say schmaltzy) depictions of godly Americana. His passing earlier this month has been decidedly messier. After the 54-year-old died of apparent natural causes in the company of live-in girlfriend Amy Pinto-Walsh, Kinkade’s wife, Nanette , filed a restraining order preventing Pinto-Walsh from discussing Kinkade, his family or his business interests in a manner that may cause them “to appear in a negative light or false light.” Of particular concern for Kinkade’s estate are details like paint choices and the use of computer enhancement.

A level playing field

No one questions Alison Levine’s toughness. The 21-year-old plays a sport once known as “murderball,” a caustic combination of rugby and basketball played in a wheelchair; athletes bash one another as they attempt to score by rolling through the opposing team’s goal. Levine has played wheelchair rugby, as the sport is officially known, since a neuromuscular disorder limited her mobility. She is one of the sport’s standouts, and is participating in the Canadian wheelchair rugby championships in her native Montreal later this week. Playing the game allows her “to cream someone and knock them out of their chairs,” Levine told the Montreal Gazette. “It’s like you forget; it’s like a level playing field.”

A House divided

U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor typically aims his ire at Democratic targets like President Obama. But he recently donated upwards of $100,000 to the political action committee of Illinois Republican Adam Kinzinger, who went on to defeat veteran GOP congressman Don Manzullo in a primary battle for this fall’s election. Cantor wouldn’t admit as much, but Washington insiders say he was stung several years ago when Manzullo allegedly said Cantor, a devout Jew, wouldn’t be “saved.” Manzullo has since called for Cantor’s resignation, saying the House leader shouldn’t take sides in a Republican primary—especially against another Republican.

Viral shaming

While the world heaps shame on Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad for killing thousands of his own citizens, two women chose another target: Assad’s wife, Asma. Sheila Lyall Grant and Huberta von Voss-Wittig, the wives of British and German ambassadors, produced a video urging Asma to stop her husband and “fight for peace.” It uses her own words against her: prior to the Syrian uprising last year, the Western-educated Asma portrayed herself as a human rights advocate. “We should all be able to live in peace, stability and with our dignities,” Asma said at a conference. “Asma, when you kiss your own children goodnight, another mother will find the place next to her empty,” a voice-over says on the video, posted to YouTube. “These children could be your children. They are your children.”

Facing 60 years on the throne

A massive portrait of Queen Elizabeth II was projected onto Buckingham Palace this week. The giant image was actually a montage, made from portraits drawn by some 200,000 children; it celebrates Britain’s children in the lead-up to the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee this spring.